


(Not) Straight As An Arrow

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Bad Jokes, Bad Puns, Bisexual Male Character, Coming Out, Gen, idk when this is set so we'll say s5 ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 23:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11931294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: Oliver's attempts at coming out to his team don't go according to plan.





	(Not) Straight As An Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt by Alexiablackbriar13:
> 
> PROMPT TIME: Oliver trying desperately to hint towards Felicity and Team Arrow that he's queer (you choose which sexuality exactly) by using puns because he wants to come out to them so they can all go to Pride together, until he finally explodes after a few days of nobody picking up on it. Are his puns really that bad!?

He started small, with a rainbow-coloured flag in a ceramic pot placed on his desk at City Hall the week that the city was in preparation for its first-ever Pride Parade.

It was perfectly innocuous, as most of City Hall was decorated in various technicolour posters and advertisements for the event, and several of the staff had been sporting rainbow-coloured pins to demonstrate their support, but Oliver’s palms sweated and his fingers shook as he fidgeted with his shirt cuffs most of the morning, tapping the toe of his shoe against the floor in a nervous tic that betrayed his anxiety over what he was planning to do.

Star City had never had an openly not-heterosexual Mayor before.

Oliver was planning on being the first.

After a lot of thinking and agonizing, and all of the things that had happened in the last year - how much he had learnt, how much he’d realized that he needed to be himself in order to be really, truly happy - he had decided that he was going to do something he never done and had always kept secret. Not even Felicity knew, and he had told her so many things about himself, his past, things he’d buried deep under the surface and he hoped would never find their way back…but not this.

He was going to tell the team - and the city - that he was bisexual, and he was going to attend the Star City Pride Parade not as the Mayor in an official capacity, but as Oliver, a person who had lived in so much shame and anger and hurt and fear for so long that he was ready to come out (pun definitely intended) from under it and be honest. One of the few times in his life he ever had been.

The team was his family, and he wanted to show his family that he could be truthful and proud to be who he was. That he wasn’t always going to be the reserved, guarded, aloof leader that they sometimes saw him as.

He wanted to be brave.

And he wanted to come out.

It was just a matter of finding the right way to tell people.

_ _ _ _

At some point during the afternoon, his assistant, Janine, knocked on his office door to deliver some paperwork for him to sign. After waving her in, he steeled himself for the inevitable conversation he would have about his newest desk decoration.

While handing him the stack of forms that needed his approval, she spotted the little flag waving in its pot and exclaimed, “Oooh, that’s adorable! It’s so great that we have such a supportive and open Mayor in this city.” She paused, before adding shyly, “My wife and I have been waiting for this for a long time. It really means a lot to us, Mr. Queen.”

Oliver smiled widely despite himself, placing his signature on the papers in front of him without much thought. He knew what it was; plans for a go-ahead from the Leisure and Recreation department for a public park in the Glades, somewhere for kids from rough homes to play and have fun away from the troubles their families might be facing. It always made him think of Roy, and how he’d grown up with a single mother with difficulties staying clean, with no safe place to go when things got too much.

“It - it means a lot to me to have your support,” he replied, feeling the nerves rise up in his stomach like bubbles in acid. “Actually, I - it’s a personal issue for me, too, and I feel like this is the right time to be honest with myself about it.”

“Oh, of course, because you’re friends with Curtis, right? Curtis Holt. He works with Felicity Smoak.”

Oliver sat back in his seat awkwardly, fidgeting with his suit jacket buttons. “Ah - yes, Curtis is a good friend of mine, but I was talking about….you know what? Nevermind.” He handed Janine back the paperwork, his throat dry with the words that he was trying to get out but just wouldn’t come. “I guess I’m just not quite good enough yet at being straight with people.”

Janine blinked owlishly, and Oliver saw the confusion clearly on her face. “Good afternoon, Mr. Queen,” she said quickly, turning and leaving, closing the door behind her.

_ _ _

“You sure you can take this guy?”

Felicity was apprehensive, biting at her lip worriedly as she studied the case file of the man in front of her. Giaccomo Felantini, a street dealer who had bad blood with the Irish mob due to a clash between their two powerful crime families a year or so earlier. He was deadly and good at dodging the authorities and, up until now, the Green Arrow, too.

“I can do it,” Oliver said with confidence. “Besides, I have the rest of the team to help if there’s any trouble.”

“You got it, boss,” Rene replied, performing a salute in Oliver’s direction. Dinah and Curtis both nodded in agreement.

But Felicity was still worried. “I don’t know, Oliver. He’s a notorious triple threat. Are you sure you don’t want more concrete back-up?” She leaned back, called out to where Digg was still changing into his Spartan gear. “Digg? What do you think?”

Oliver stepped up to Felicity, resting a hand on her shoulder lightly. He could feel the tenseness of her muscles, how on edge she was. Her skin was warm and soft where his fingertips brushed it. It was so nice to be able to be like this with her again, to have this intimacy and not have it be painful for either of them.

“Felicity,” he said. “I can do it. I’m used to going two ways.” His lips lifted into a half-smile, his eyes intent on her. Please understand what I’m saying.

This isn’t just about the mission. It’s about me.

“What does that have to do with catching an Italian drug-dealing mobster?”

Oliver repressed a sigh. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

_ _ _

He was getting rather irritated with people not being able to understand him.

For days he had been dropping hints and leaving clues, wearing a rainbow pin proudly on the lapel of his jacket and telling the bank teller when he’d gone to check the city accounts that he was particularly excited about the Parade scheduled for that weekend. But all he got were blank looks or people mistaking him for being a very enthusiastic straight ally, which, while he appreciated that it was important to have such support within the LGBT community in Star City, he really wished people wouldn’t assume any more things about him than they already had.

It all came to a head in the bunker one evening.

A meeting had run over at City Hall so he’d arrived late, finding Felicity, Diggle, Dinah, Curtis, and Rene well into the plans for that night’s vigilante activities. He hadn’t had time to change and so had arrived still wearing the little enamel pin he’d bought from a girl with the bisexual pride flag painted on both cheeks selling Parade merchandise outside Star City National Bank - who had also taken it upon herself, with a dazzling smile, to tuck a rainbow-patterned scarf into his jacket pocket, thanking him for his support as Mayor and telling him it was free of charge ‘for the first Mayor we’ve had who wasn’t a total dick’.

He’d vaguely wondered what the city might say if he turned up to work with similar face paint, as that was probably what it would take for anyone to get the hint.

It was Curtis who noticed it first, gushing “Oh wow, cool,” as he pulled the brightly-coloured accessory from Oliver’s pocket. “I knew you were a decent guy. I mean, I always knew you were a decent guy, even if you kind of terrified me, but this -” he took a deep breath, and mortifyingly, Oliver saw tears well up behind his glasses. “It means a lot to me, man.”

“Um,” Oliver said, mostly because he didn’t know what to say - and also because he knew that if he didn’t do it now, he never would. “Curtis, I - well, everyone. I have something to say.”

Five pairs of eyes looked curiously in his direction. He slowly took the scarf back from Curtis and twisted it around his fingers absently, letting the softness of the fabric and the crazy colours of the design ground him.

“The Star City Pride Parade means a lot to me, but not just because I’m the Mayor. I’ve been trying for the last few days to drop hints -” he looked around at the group, his friends, and steeled himself. “And make some jokes but, uh, I guess they fell a little flat?”

“I don’t get it,” Rene said with a shrug. “Does anyone else get it?”

“What are you trying to say, Oliver?” This was Digg, calm and mellow as always, pointing him in the right direction.

He lifted the scarf, waved it slightly in his fist like - well, like a flag.

“The only thing that’s straight about me is my arrows.”

Curtis laughed, “Unless your aim is off, then -”

He paused, his eyes wide as saucers. Everyone was dead silent. And then he said, “Oh. OH.”

Oliver nodded.

And the penny dropped.

“Right on, boss!” Rene shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

“I got your back, Oliver,” Dinah said with a nod. “If they don’t like it, I guess they’ll get to hear what a Canary sounds like.”

“Wow, you really need to work on your coming out jokes,” Felicity shook her head, but her cheeks were pink and she was smiling.

“I’m glad you told us, man,” Diggle added, clapping him on the back in a one-armed hug. “You’ll get no judgement here.”

“But seriously, Felicity’s right. You do need to work on your coming out jokes.”


End file.
